


Transformation

by Shatterpath



Category: Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-31
Updated: 2011-03-31
Packaged: 2017-10-25 19:46:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatterpath/pseuds/Shatterpath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice's return to Underland has layers she would have never expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transformation

**Author's Note:**

> Written on 3-31-11 in 2:15 hours. What can I say? I was possessed.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine. Duh.  
> Notes: Nothing in The [Totally Not] Annual femslash_today Porn Battle, jumped out at me… except for a curiosity about the Alice in Wonderland ones. Since I only just saw the movie a couple days ago, she was fresh in my mind. I caught it again this morning, coming in a bit late, and was struck by that last image of Absolem landing on Alice's shoulder as she begins her new life. From that came this whole damn story…

I felt the pull of land far from her verdant shore. Felt it like a string wound round my heart, my lungs, my tender girlish places of which I could not speak. Not the land even, but the secret place beneath, where I suspect I should not have left at all.

My dreams are smoke and fire and need. Smoky images of the flashing Vorpal sword, the monstrousness of the Jaberwocky, the battlefield of checkered squares on the lifeless plain. Has it started to grow again? Without the fetid presence of the great beast and the mad queen who owned it? So vivid are my dreams that the world I thought would be a great adventure seems to pale and yellow like old paper.

The ocean is endless and blue and frankly, boring. It's endless blueness seeps into me, colors me, poisons my eyes. When I notice its color has stained even my body, I am barely surprised. Where Absolem landed, his blue leeched to my skin and spreads like spidery fungus through the rich earth. It aches, here on the endless blue, like the place where the invisible string is tied to my soul.

Oh, I function, playing my part in this expedition to the heathen lands of China, but my normalcy is only skin deep. How I long for my Wonderland, that place beneath what can be seen.

The presence of that normalcy is shattered as we dock in Hong Kong and begin unloading. A flash of pain, the rip of fabric and my sleeve tears high on my shoulder. The men are so stunned at the vivid blue of my skin that I have a moment to escape their superstitious fear. Driven now by the hunt, I gather a few things, leave behind all signs of my European life. Oh how I wish for a sip of pishalver as I wriggle painfully through the porthole, reaching back in to grab my small sack of things and grin ferally at the sailors as they break down the door. Ha! As though they can stop me! I tamed the mighty bandersnatch! I slayed the Jaberwocky! Beneath the filthy docks I bind my hair and dress in the simple, rough clothes pilfered away while on the 'Wonder'. Through Hong Kong I stealth, ignoring the foreign faces around me and the strangeness of their language.

Oh, my pursuers do their best to find me, the alarm rippling through the crowded, dirty chaos of the city, but I am immune to it now, blinded by the invisible pull of Underland. Moments ahead of their flashing swords and their fear, I scrabble over a high wall with the ease of a caterpillar and find myself in a garden almost as wonderful as the place where I belong.

Only moments now! Cackling with wild pleasure, I evade the men who want to exterminate what I have become, taunting their ineffectual efforts and dive headfirst down the rabbit hole. The tug on my soul that led me to this place tugs me down, allows me to evade the floating projectiles and gain some distance between myself and the clumsy oafs falling behind me. This time, the topsy turvy of up and down and down and up do not startle me and I leap for the key and the desperately needed bottle of that miraculous elixir. Yanking open the door, I drink deep and throw myself through, hastened by the horrific crash that means the death of my pursuers.

"Oh Wonderland," I breathe into the jungle sweet of it. "How I have missed you."

Dimly, I note how blue the moonlight makes my skin as I grope nakedly into the riot of plants and find a dank hollow in a tree. Here, here I must rest until whatever is meant to be happens.

After all, I have hardly been myself in some time.

A time of dreamless black passes in silence and stillness. Only the dimly felt contours of my familiar body keep me company, and even that is as fluid as water it seems. So when I wake to a suffocating, nearly airless closeness, my panic is stayed only just long enough for my body to try and escape. A near soundless rip, a crack in the shell and I wiggle my arms, crossed over my heart as though protecting it, out to grasp the edges of my prison.

Groaning with the effort, I grasp the stiff, leathery casing and feel myself released, body turning over, half falling and half landing on the spongy floor of the nook in the tree. Chilled and shaken in the near-dark, I take stock as best I can. What has happened to me? I have changed yet again, that much I know, but what exactly does that mean this time?

The plants of the forest have closed the entrance almost completely, only a hint of light leading me to freedom. They fight me as I push against them and I hiss in pain as they catch at…

Wait.

It can't be.

But neither my nerves nor my eyes deceive me, and sprouting from my back like the glorious petals of some exotic flower… are wings. Limp and damp and somewhat pathetic, I nonetheless recognize them for what they are. Exactly like the magnificently blue Absolem when he alighted on my shoulder to see me away from familiar shores, are the drying wings of a butterfly.

Honestly, I cannot help it, and let the laughter burble from deep within me, feeling the thread of soul that led me here tie tightly to this place. Twirling in the moonlight, I drink deep the change, accept it and make it part of myself. No longer am I the blue of that empty ocean I shall never see again, but the blue of twilight skies, the mysterious places between dusk and dawn, dawn and dusk. I will take the old caterpillar's place as the wisdom of this world.

Letting the new wings behave as they will, flapping slowly to dry in the cool night, I turn to the small door whence I came and brace myself for the carnage within. Only, there is little more than a pile of rags and bones, the room smelling more of a dusty tomb than decay. My metamorphosis has apparently taken rather longer than I thought. Well, in the sunlight of morning I will see if anything is salvageable. In the meantime, I have never been so hungry.

Luckily, there are flowers nearby and I search out the tallest among them and politely tap her stem. Almost immediately, the entire grove stirs, chattering amidst themselves and I wait politely for their acknowledgement.

"What is that?" at last a handsome iris asks and all eyes are upon me. The first stirrings of morning are beginning to streak the sky, helping my eyes.

"Good morning, all of you," I greet them politely, sketching a curtsy that reminds me of my nakedness. "I apologize profusely for awakening you so early, but I fear that I must ask your assistance."

Again, they murmur among themselves and a grand lady of a red rose leans in closely. "You are like no creature that I have ever seen here."

This one I have an answer of sorts to, and bow low so that they may exclaim over the breadth of glorious wings sprouting from me. "Absolem sent me."

The flowers had been ever so eager to help me after that, feeding me sweet nectar to sustain my needy body and providing me shelter to sleep until the sun grew full and warm. Stretching in the dappled sun, I thank my hosts and gratefully accept a leaf cup of more nectar for breakfast. In the warmth of the day, I laugh once more, noting that I still apparently am primarily myself it seems. The blue fades away from the wings, leaving most of my front side its familiar pink, though the place where Absolem landed is the deepest blue and looks almost like a kiss mark. A glance in a puddle confirms it, as well as the twilight sky color that has replaced the earthy color of my eyes. Ah well, at least the color looks good with my flaxen hair.

Through the door I can explore the bits and pieces of the life I left behind. Little remains, though a few scraps of clothing allow me some semblance of modesty and I am delighted to find the worn wooden box that thankfully contains the luscious pieces of upelkuchen. In the cleanest scrap of cloth I can find, I wrap up a mouthful and tuck it into my makeshift belt.

Now, to learn to fly!

Luckily for me, the wings seem to know more than I and the embrace of the sky takes me up and up and up. Laughing, giddy with the freedom, I dance with the invisible eddies of air and keep a wary eye out for birds. No sense in getting eaten! From above, the landscape of Underland is a lush carpet of colors and textures as far as the eye can see. Something draws me towards a jagged mountain range and that is where I find my lair.

Empty and echoing of the madness that once filled it, lies the lair of the Red Queen. There's nary a spider web in the whole forsaken place, not a scent of mouse or bat. Well, that will change come morning! As for now, I find a dusty bed and climb in between the sheets to slip away to dreamland.

Unlike the blackness to which I woke this morning, I dream with excessive, languishing voluptuousness. I see a handsome couple with a pair of daughters, fire and ice, the whole lot of them drenched in the delightful madness of this land, but only one dangerous. I feel the pulse of magic and destiny that fills me as water will fill a vessel, taking on its contours and volume. I see my friends, the Hatter grown older and tinged with grey, Bayard's children, many generations removed, Tweedledee and Tweedledum all the smaller with age.

Only Mirana seems unaffected by time and that draws me to her like a moth to flame. Even in dreams, the fallacy of moths and the reality of my new wings provide me with great amusement.

Awake before the dawn, I eat my nibble of upelkuchen cake and regain my normal stature. Then I forage outside for a few fresh meals from the helpful flowers and return to the castle to fashion some semblance of clothing. It is unfortunate the preponderance of red, but what is a butterfly to do? "More of a fairy, really," I muse to myself with a chuckle. How lucky a girl am I? The fantasies of youth are to be reality to me, this magical land, and this changed form I bear.

That evening, the procession arrives.

It is a fine spectacle of white and red that approaches the open, dilapidated gates. At the front is the White Queen astride her noble steed. Excellent, my first act of state then.

The ripple of astonishment as I appear at the main door thrills me. "Greetings Queen Mirana Crimms," I call out jovially over the unnatural stillness of the crowd. "Welcome to the new house of Alice!"

The ripple of astonishment delights me, deepening as I leave the pull of earth to float gracefully to the liege of these lands and bow deeply.

"Alice?" she murmurs blankly and startles as I step in to take a delicate hand in mine. She doesn't resist the tug, though I am surprised by the fierce embrace. "Alice! By the four seasons, it is you! And so magnificently appointed!"

A frilly, delicate creature, nonetheless the queen hugs like an athlete. "It appears that Absolem left me quite the gift," I chortle against her ice-white mane and hug back. The fluttering, dove like hands are careful of my dramatic wings, resting high on my shoulder and low on my hip.

"What a glorious gift indeed! When the birds spoke of a strange creature coming to roost in my sister's empty castle, I felt it prudent to visit." Something strange and oddly feral flickers in the dark eyes, rimmed in kohl. "Factually speaking, I felt drawn irresistibly here. Is that your doing?"

"My apologies, highness. I believe the gift may be more than merely wings."

"These are no mere wings!"

The party lingers well into darkness, the soldiers bringing in fresh supplies from the forest, the attending creatures and animals doing a quick cleanup of the dust of years. How happy I am to see my old friends, to see how happy they are in this just and good reign. But is not they who distract me, draw my attention, but the icy white radiance of Mirana.

She remains close, as is proper in this public setting, but even when sleep beckons, I am reluctant to let her depart from my company. She may be ice but she attracts me like fire, wanting to foolishly singe my new wings. The sensations are strange and unfamiliar, but is that not what Wonderland is fashioned of? The strange and unfamiliar are now the commonplace and easily accepted here, away from the world above. When my curious hands, faintly tinged with blue, search out the heat of her beneath the icy white, Mirana seems confused but drawn to me as surely as I am drawn to her.

Silent in the shadows of the madness banished with her older sister, we come together in a manner both foreign and familiar. We may be the colors of night sky and winter, but there is nothing but heat between us. Beneath her royal raiments is ghost pale skin that stands stark contrast to even my flaxen coloring. Entranced, I touch her excessively, luxuriously, endlessly, drinking in the sounds of her confusion and surrender. The ice melts, she is feral and free beneath my touch and kisses me wildly. In time she turns on me like some unleashed predator, nearly damaging my new wings, but gentles at my giggling protests.

She too, tears me undone, lost in pleasures I scarcely understand but enjoy utterly. In time, we quiet in the deepest darkness of night, cuddled in the luxurious bed. Beneath my cheek, her heart beats steady, the pulse of this land. Those delicate, foppish hands stroke my head, the slow pulse of the wings that mark me as Absolem's favorite.

"I think," my voice breaks the quiet, sounding almost vulgar. Clearing my throat and propping my body up on my elbows, I look at this unusual lover of mine and cock my head like a curious pup. "I think I shall like to apply for a promotion, my liege."

"Oh?" she smiles coquettishly and traces my face with warm fingertips. "And how is that?"

"I think that I shall like to be promoted from champion to consort."

Laughing, Mirana draws me again to the heat of her body, my new haven in the heart of this adopted land. "I do believe, my brave one, that is entirely within our means."


End file.
